Michel Marc Bouchard's latest play tells the story of Queen Christina of Sweden, who wreaked havoc throughout northern Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century. An enigmatic monarch, a flamboyant and unpredictable intellectual, a woman eager for knowledge, and a feminist before her time, Christina reigned over an empire she hoped to make the most sophisticated in all of Europe.
In 1649, Christina summoned René Descartes to her court in Uppsala to share with her the radical new ideas emerging from science and philosophy at the time - ideas that contradicted long-held, faith-based views about the world. Astronomer Johannes Kepler had recently proposed the elliptical trajectory of planets - including Earth - around the sun, and Descartes himself contended, despite condemnation from the Church, that individuals, not God, determined their own destiny.
Descartes's ideas about free will and reason appealed to Christina, who was struggling to reconcile tensions between her rational, thinking self and emotions she dared not name - including her love for a woman. Rather than bow to pressure to conform to the expectations of a nation that demanded she give it an heir, the twenty-six-year-old queen abdicated her throne to convert to Catholicism - rendering her ineligible to rule, according to Swedish law. Was this an act of madness? Or a bold gesture of autonomy by a modern woman born out of her time - one whom the seventeenth century simply could not contain?
Christina, The Girl King premiered at the 2014 Stratford Festival.
Cast of 4 women and 6 men.
Autorentext
Québec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard emerged on the professional theatre scene in 1985. Since then, he has written more than 25 plays, many of which have been translated into more than 20 languages and performed globally. Several of his works have been adapted into films, notably Lilies (1996), directed by John Greyson, and Tom at the Farm (2013), directed by Xavier Dolan.
Throughout his career, Bouchard has received numerous accolades, including the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2023), the Prix Athanase-David (2021)-Quebec's highest literary honour-the National Order of Quebec (2012), and the Order of Canada (2005). He has also been honoured with the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Drama.
Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal. Her translations of plays by Quebec's most prominent playwrights have been published and produced across Canada and abroad. In her work as a literary manager and dramaturge, she has directed numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. She was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Gaboriau has twice won the Governor General's Award for Translation.